How Modernization Leads to Democracy

How Development
Leads to Democracy
What We Know About Modernization
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel
In the last several years, a democratic boom has given way to a

democratic recession. Between 1985 and 1995, scores of countries
made the transition to democracy, bringing widespread euphoria
about democracy's future. But more recently, democracy has retreated in
Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia,Thailand, and Venezuela,
and the Bush administration's attempts to establish democracy in
Afghanistan and Iraq seem to have left both countries in chaos. These
developments, along with the growing power of China and Russia,
have led many observers to argue that democracy has reached its high
water mark and is no longer on the rise.
That conclusion is mistaken. The underlying conditions of societies
around the world point to a more complicated reality. The bad news is that it
is unrealistic to assume that democratic institutions can be set up easily, almost
anywhere, at any time. Although the outlook is never hopeless, democracy
is most likely to emerge and survive when certain social and cultural con
ditions are in place. The Bush administration ignored this reality when it
attempted to implant democracy in Iraq without first establishing inter
nal security and overlooked cultural conditions that endangered the effort.
Ronald Inglehart is Professor of Political Science at the University of

Michigan and Director of the World Values Survey. ChristianWelzel
is Professor of Political Science at Jacobs University Bremen, in Germany.
They are the co-authors of Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy.
[33]
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The good news, however, is that the conditions conducive to

democracy can and do emerge?and the process of "modernization,"
according to abundant empirical evidence, advances them. Moderniza
tion is a syndrome of social changes linked to industrialization. Once set
in motion, it tends to penetrate all aspects of life, bringing occupational
specialization, urbanization, rising educational levels, rising life ex
pectancy, and rapid economic growth. These create a self-reinforcing
process that transforms social life and political institutions, bringing
rising mass participation in politics and?in the long run?making
the establishment of democratic political institutions increasingly
likely. Today, we have a clearer idea than ever before of why and how
this process of democratization happens.
The long-term trend toward democracy has always come in surges
and declines. At the start of the twentieth century, only a handful of
democracies existed, and even they fell short of being full democracies
by todays standards. There was a major increase in the number of
democracies following World War I, another surge following World
War II, and a third surge at the end of the Cold War. Each of these
surges was followed by a decline, although the number of democracies
never fell back to the original base line. By the start of the twenty-first
century, about 90 states could be considered democratic.
Although many of these democracies are flawed, the overall trend
is striking: in the long run, modernization brings democracy. This means
that the economic resurgence of China and Russia has a positive aspect:
underlying changes are occurring that make the emergence of increas
ingly liberal and democratic political systems likely in the coming
years. It also means that there is no reason to panic about the fact that
democracy currently appears to be on the defensive. The dynamics of
modernization and democratization are becoming increasingly clear,
and it is likely that they will continue to function.
the great debate
The concept of modernization has a long history.

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a Marxist theory of m
proclaimed that the abolition of private property would pu
exploitation, inequality, and conflict. A competing capit
[34] foreign affairs ? Volume88No. 2
How Development Leads to Democracy
held that economic development would lead to rising living standards

and democracy. These two visions of modernization competed
fiercely throughout much of the Cold War. By the 1970s, however,
communism began to stagnate, and neither economic development
nor democratization was apparent in many poor countries. Neither
version of utopia seemed to be unfolding, and critics pronounced
modernization theory dead.
Since the end of the Cold War, however, the concept of modern
ization has taken on new life, and a new version of modernization
theory has emerged, with clear implications for our understanding
of where global economic development is likely to lead. Stripped of
the oversimplifications of its early versions, the new concept of modern
ization sheds light on ongoing cultural changes, such as the rise of
gender equality; the recent wave of democratization; and the democratic
peace theory.
For most of human history, technological progress was extremely
slow and new developments in food production were offset by
population increases?trapping agrarian economies in a steady-state
equilibrium with no growth in living standards. History was seen as
either cyclic or in long-term decline from a past golden age. The sit
uation began to change with the Industrial Revolution and the advent
of sustained economic growth?which led to both the capitalist and
the communist visions of modernization. Although the ideologies
competed fiercely, they were both committed to economic growth
and social progress and brought mass participation in politics. And
each side believed that the developing nations of the Third World
would follow its path to modernization.
At the height of the Cold War, a version of modernization theory
emerged in the United States that portrayed underdevelopment as a
direct consequence of a country's psychological and cultural traits.
Underdevelopment was said to reflect irrational traditional religious
and communal values that discouraged achievement. The rich Western
democracies, the theory went, could instill modern values and bring
progress to "backward" nations through economic, cultural, and military
assistance. By the 1970s, however, it had become clear that assistance
had not brought much progress toward prosperity or democracy?
eroding confidence in this version of modernization theory, which
FOREIGN A F FA 1RS? March /April 2009 [35]
was increasingly criticized as ethnocentric and patronizing. It came

under heavy criticism from "dependency theorists/' who argued that
trade with rich countries exploits poor ones, locking them into positions
of structural dependence. The elites in developing countries welcomed
such thinking, since it implied that poverty had nothing to do with
internal problems or the corruption of local leaders; it was the fault of
global capitalism. By the 1980s, dependency theory was in vogue.
Third World nations, the thinking went, could escape from global
exploitation only by withdrawing from global markets and adopting
import-substitution policies.
More recently, it has become apparent that import-substitution
strategies have failed: the countries least involved in global trade, such
as Cuba, Myanmar (also called Burma), and North Korea, have not
been the most successful?they have actually grown the least. Export
oriented strategies have been far more effective in promoting sustained
economic growth and, eventually, democratization. The pendulum,
accordingly, has swung back, and a new version of modernization theory
has gained credibility. The rapid economic development of East Asia,
and the subsequent democratization of South Korea and Taiwan, seem
to confirm its basic claims: producing for the world market enables
economic growth; investing the returns in human capital and upgrading
the work force to produce high-tech goods brings higher returns and
enlarges the educated middle class; once the middle class becomes large
and articulate enough, it presses for liberal democracy?the most effec
tive political system for advanced industrial societies. Nevertheless,
even today, if one mentions modernization at a conference on economic
development, one is likely to hear a reiteration of dependency theory's
critique of the "backward nations" version of modernization theory,
as if that were all there is to modernization theory?and as if no new
evidence had emerged since the 1970s.
the new modernization
In retrospect, it is obvious that the early versions of mod

theory were wrong on several points. Today, virtually nobody
revolution of the proletariat that will abolish private property
in a new era free from exploitation and conflict. Nor does any
[36] foreign affairs ? Volume 88 No. 2
that industrialization will automatically lead to democratic institutions;

communism and fascism also emerged from industrialization.
Nonetheless, a massive body of evidence suggests that modernization
theory's central premise was correct: economic development does tend
to bring about important, roughly predictable changes in society, culture,
and politics. But the earlier versions of modernization theory need to
be corrected in several respects.
First, modernization is not linear. It does not move indefinitely in
the same direction; instead, the process reaches inflection points.
Empirical evidence indicates that each phase of modernization is asso
ciated with distinctive changes in people s worldviews. Industrialization
leads to one major process of change, resulting in bureaucratization,
hierarchy, centralization of authority, secularization, and a shift from
traditional to secular-rational values. The rise of postindustrial society
brings another set of cultural changes that move in a different direction:
instead of bureaucratization and centralization, the new trend is toward
an increasing emphasis on individual autonomy and self-expression
values, which lead to a growing emancipation from authority.
Thus, other things being equal, high levels of economic development
tend to make people more tolerant and trusting, bringing more
emphasis on self-expression and more participation in decision
making. This process is not deterministic, and any forecasts can
only be probabilistic, since economic factors are not the only influence;
a given country's leaders and nation-specific events also shape
what happens. Moreover, modernization is not irreversible. Severe
economic collapse can reverse it, as happened during the Great
Depression in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain and during the
1990s in most of the Soviet successor states. Similarly, if the current
economic crisis becomes a twenty-first-century Great Depression,
the world could face a new struggle against renewed xenophobia
and authoritarianism.
Second, social and cultural change is path dependent: history mat
ters. Although economic development tends to bring predictable
changes in people's worldviews, a society's heritage?whether shaped
by Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Confucianism, or communism?
leaves a lasting imprint on its worldview. A society's value system
reflects an interaction between the driving forces of modernization
FOREIGN A F FA 1RS? March /April 200p
and the persisting influence of tradition. Although the classic modern

ization theorists in both the East and the West thought that religion
and ethnic traditions would die out, they have proved to be highly
resilient. Although the publics of industrializing societies are becoming
richer and more educated, that is hardly creating a uniform global
culture. Cultural heritages are remarkably enduring.
Third, modernization is not westernization, contrary to the earlier,
ethnocentric version of the theory. The process of industrialization
began in the West, but during the past few decades, East Asia has
had the world s highest economic growth rates, and Japan leads the
world in life expectancy and some other aspects of modernization.
The United States is not the model for global cultural change, and
industrializing societies in general are not becoming like the United
States, as a popular version of modernization theory assumes. In fact,
American society retains more traditional values than do most other
high-income societies.
Fourth, modernization does not automatically lead to democracy.
Rather, it, in the long run, brings social and cultural changes that make
democratization increasingly probable. Simply attaining a high level of
per capita gdp does not produce democracy:
Beyond a Certain point, if it did, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates
. ^ would have become model democracies.
economic rdevelopment , , +not? gone
(these countries nave u + through
,u u
makes it difficult to the modernization process described above.)
avoid democratization. **ut ?e emergence of postindustrial society
brings certain social and cultural changes that
are specifically conducive to democratization. Knowledge societies
cannot function effectively without highly educated publics that have
become increasingly accustomed to thinking for themselves. Further
more, rising levels of economic security bring a growing emphasis on a
syndrome of self-expression values?one that gives high priority to free
choice and motivates political action. Beyond a certain point, accord
ingly, it becomes difficult to avoid democratization, because repressing
mass demands for more open societies becomes increasingly costly and
detrimental to economic effectiveness. Thus, in its advanced stages,
modernization brings social and cultural changes that make the emer
gence and flourishing of democratic institutions increasingly likely.
The core idea of modernization theory is that economic and tech

nological development bring a coherent set of social, cultural, and
political changes. A large body of empirical evidence supports this
idea. Economic development is, indeed, strongly linked to pervasive
shifts in people s beliefs and motivations, and these shifts in turn
change the role of religion, job motivations, human fertility rates, gender
roles, and sexual norms. And they also bring growing mass demands
for democratic institutions and for more responsive behavior on the
part of elites. These changes together make democracy increasingly
likely to emerge, while also making war less acceptable to publics.
evaluating values
New sources of empirical evidence provide valuable ins

how modernization changes worldviews and motivation
portant source is global surveys of mass values and attitudes.
1981 and 2007, the World Values Survey and the European Va
carried out five waves of representative national surveys in
countries, covering almost 90 percent of the world s populat
the data from the surveys, visit www.worldvaluessurvey.o
sults show large cross-national differences in what people be
value. In some countries, 95 percent of the people surveyed
God was very important in their lives; in others, only 3 perc
In some societies, 90 percent of the people surveyed said the
that men have more of a right to a job than women do; in o
8 percent said they thought so. These cross-national diffe
robust and enduring, and they are closely correlated with a
level of economic development: people in low-income soc
much likelier to emphasize religion and traditional gender
are people in rich countries.
These values surveys demonstrate that the worldviews
living in rich societies differ systematically from those of p
in low-income societies across a wide range of political, s
religious norms. The differences run along two basic dim
traditional versus secular-rational values and survival ver
expression values. (Each dimension reflects responses to s
questions asked as part of the values surveys.) The shift from
foreign a f fa 1rs? March /April 200? [39]
to secular-rational values is linked to the shift from agrarian to industrial

societies. Traditional societies emphasize religion, respect for and obe
dience to authority, and national pride. These characteristics change
as societies become more secular and rational.
The shift from survival to self-expression values is linked to the
rise of postindustrial societies. It reflects a cultural shift that occurs
when younger generations emerge that have grown up taking survival
for granted. Survival values give top priority to economic and physical
security and conformist social norms. Self-expression values give high
priority to freedom of expression, participation in decision-making,
political activism, environmental protection, gender equality, and
tolerance of ethnic minorities, foreigners, and gays and lesbians. A
growing emphasis on these latter values engenders a culture of
trust and tolerance in which people cherish individual freedom and
self-expression and have activist political orientations. These at
tributes are crucial to democracy?and thus explain how economic
growth, which takes societies from agrarian to industrial and then
from industrial to postindustrial, leads to democratization. The
unprecedented economic growth of the past 50 years has meant
that an increasing share of the worlds population has grown up
taking survival for granted. Time-series data from the values surveys
indicate that mass priorities have shifted from an overwhelming
emphasis on economic and physical security to an emphasis on
subjective well-being, self-expression, participation in decision-making,
and a relatively trusting and tolerant outlook.
Both dimensions are closely linked to economic development: the
value systems of high-income countries differ dramatically from those
of low-income countries. Every nation that the World Bank defines as
having a high income ranks relatively high on both dimensions?with
a strong emphasis on both secular-rational and self-expression values.
All the low-income and lower-middle-income countries rank relatively
low on both dimensions. The upper-middle-income countries fall
somewhere in between. To a remarkable degree, the values and beliefs
of a given society reflect its level of economic development?just as
modernization theory predicts.
This strong connection between a society's value system and its per
capita GDP suggests that economic development tends to produce roughly
[40] FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? Volume 88 No. 2
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
Pakistani lawyers protesting to reinstate dozens of firedjudges, Islamabad, 2008
predictable changes in a society's beliefs and values, and time-series

evidence supports this hypothesis. When one compares the positions
of given countries in successive waves of the values surveys, one finds
that almost all the countries that experienced rising per capita gdps
also experienced predictable shifts in their values.
The values survey evidence also shows, however, that cultural
change is path dependent; a society's cultural heritage also shapes where
it falls on the global cultural map. This map shows distinctive clusters
of countries: Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe, ex-communist
Europe, the English-speaking countries, Latin America, South Asia,
the Islamic world, and Africa. The values emphasized by different
societies fall into a remarkably coherent pattern that reflects both
those societies' economic development and their religious and colonial
heritage. Still, even if a society's cultural heritage continues to shape
its prevailing values, economic development brings changes that have
important consequences. Over time, it reshapes beliefs and values
of all kinds?and it brings a growing mass demand for democratic
institutions and for more responsive elite behavior. And over the quarter
century covered by the values surveys, the people of most countries
placed increasing emphasis on self-expression values. This cultural

shift makes democracy increasingly likely to emerge where it does not
yet exist and increasingly likely to become more effective and more
direct where it does.
development and democracy
Fifty years ago, the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset

out that rich countries are much more likely than poor co
to be democracies. Although this claim was contested fo
years, it has held up against repeated tests. The causal dire
the relationship has also been questioned: Are rich countri
likely to be democratic because democracy makes countrie
or is development conducive to democracy? Today, it see
that the causality runs mainly from economic development to
ratization. During early industrialization, authoritarian sta
just as likely to attain high rates of growth as are democra
beyond a certain level of economic development, democracy
increasingly likely to emerge and survive. Thus, among the
countries that democratized around 1990, most were middle
countries: almost all the high-income countries already wer
racies, and few low-income countries made the transition. M
among the countries that democratized between 1970 an
democracy has survived in every country that made the t
when it was at the economic level of Argentina today or
among the countries that made the transition when the
below this level, democracy had an average life expectancy
eight years.
The strong correlation between development and dem
reflects the fact that economic development is conducive to
racy. The question of why, exactly, development leads to d
has been debated intensely, but the answer is beginning to
It does not result from some disembodied force that cause
cratic institutions to emerge automatically when a country
a certain level of gdp. Rather, economic development brings so
political changes only when it changes people s behavior. Conse
economic development is conducive to democracy to the
that it, first, creates a large, educated, and articulate middle class of
people who are accustomed to thinking for themselves and, second,
transforms people s values and motivations.
Today, it is more possible than ever before to measure what the
key changes are and how far they have progressed in given countries.
Multivariate analysis of the data from the values surveys makes it
possible to sort out the relative impact of economic, social, and cul
tural changes, and the results point to the conclusion that economic
development is conducive to democracy insofar as it brings specific
structural changes (particularly the rise of a knowledge sector) and
certain cultural changes (particularly the rise of self-expression values).
Wars, depressions, institutional changes, elite decisions, and specific
leaders also influence what happens, but structural and cultural
change are major factors in the emergence and survival of democracy.
Modernization brings rising educational levels, moving the work
force into occupations that require independent thinking and making
people more articulate and better equipped to intervene in politics.
As knowledge societies emerge, people become accustomed to using
their own initiative and judgment on the job and are also increasingly
likely to question rigid and hierarchical authority.
Modernization also makes people economically more secure, and
self-expression values become increasingly widespread when a large
share of the population grows up taking survival for granted. The
desire for freedom and autonomy are universal aspirations. They
may be subordinated to the need for subsistence and order when
survival is precarious, but they take increasingly high priority as
survival becomes more secure. The basic motivation for democracy?
the human desire for free choice?starts to play an increasingly
important role. People begin to place a growing emphasis on free
choice in politics and begin to demand civil and political liberties
and democratic institutions.
effective democracy
During the explosion of democracy that took place betwe

and 1995, electoral democracy spread rapidly throughout the
Strategic elite agreements played an important role in this p
facilitated by an international environment in which the end of the

Cold War opened the way for democratization. Initially, there was
a tendency to view any regime that held free and fair elections as a
democracy. But many of the new democracies suffered from massive
corruption and failed to apply the rule of law, which is what makes
democracy effective. A growing number of observers today thus
emphasize the inadequacy of "electoral democracy," "hybrid democracy,"
"authoritarian democracy," and other forms of sham democracy in
which mass preferences are something that political elites can largely
ignore and in which they do not decisively influence government
decisions. It is important, accordingly, to distinguish between effective
and ineffective democracies.
The essence of democracy is that it empowers ordinary citizens.
Whether a democracy is effective or not is based on not only the extent
to which civil and political rights exist on paper but also the degree to
which officials actually respect these rights. The first of these two
components?the existence of rights on paper?is measured by Free
dom House s annual rankings: if a country holds free elections, Freedom
House tends to rate it as "free," giving it a score at or near the top of
its scale. Thus, the new democracies of eastern Europe receive scores
as high as those of the established democracies of western Europe,
although in-depth analyses show that widespread corruption makes
these new democracies far less effective in responding to their citizens'
choices. Fortunately, the World Banks governance scores measure
the extent to which a country's democratic institutions are actually
effective. Consequently, a rough index of effective democracy can
be obtained by multiplying these two scores: formal democracy, as
measured by Freedom House, and elite and institutional integrity,
as measured by the World Bank.
Effective democracy is a considerably more demanding standard
than electoral democracy. One can establish electoral democracy
almost anywhere, but it will probably not last long if it does not
transfer power from the elites to the people. Effective democracy
is most likely to exist alongside a relatively developed infrastructure
that includes not only economic resources but also widespread par
ticipatory habits and an emphasis on autonomy. Accordingly, it
is closely linked to the degree to which a given public emphasizes
self-expression values. Indeed, the correlation between a society's

values and the nature of the country's political institutions is re
markably strong.
Virtually all the stable democracies show strong self-expression
values. Most Latin American countries are underachievers, showing
lower levels of effective democracy than their publics' values would
predict. This suggests that these societies
could support higher levels of democracy if Authoritarian regimes
the rule of law were strengthened there.
Iran is also an underachiever?a theocratic are undermined Dy
regime that allows a much lower level of growing security and a
democracy than that to which its people as- . .
c growing
pire, surprising as it may emphasis
seem to those 0 or on
who focus only on elite-level politics, the self-expression.
Iranian public shows relatively strong sup
port for democracy. Conversely, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland,
Latvia, and Lithuania are overachievers, showing higher levels of
democracy than their publics' values would predict?perhaps
reflecting the incentives to democratize provided by membership in
the European Union.
But do self-expression values lead to democracy, or does democracy
cause self-expression values to emerge? The evidence indicates that
these values lead to democracy. (For the full evidence for this claim,
see our book Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy})
Democratic institutions do not need to be in place for self-expression
values to emerge. Time-series evidence from the values surveys indi
cates that in the years preceding the wave of democratization in the
late 1980s and early 1990s, self-expression values had already emerged
through a process of an intergenerational change in values?not
only in the Western democracies but also within many authoritarian
societies. By 1990, the publics of East Germany and Czechoslovakia?
which had been living under two of the most authoritarian regimes
in the world?had developed high levels of self-expression values.
The crucial factor was not the political system but the fact that these
countries were among the most economically advanced countries in
the communist world, with high levels of education and advanced social
welfare systems. Thus, when the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, removing the threat of Soviet mil

itary intervention, they moved swiftly toward democracy.
In recent decades, self-expression values have been spreading and
getting stronger, making people more likely to directly intervene
in politics. (Indeed, unprecedented numbers of people took part in
the demonstrations that helped bring about the most recent wave of
democratization.) Does this mean that authoritarian systems will
inevitably crumble? No. A rising emphasis on self-expression values
tends to erode the legitimacy of authoritarian systems, but as long
as determined authoritarian elites control the army and the secret
police, they can repress pro-democratic forces. Still, even repressive
regimes find it costly to check these tendencies, for doing so tends
to block the emergence of effective knowledge sectors.
modern strategy
This new understanding of modernization has broad im

for international relations. For one thing, it helps explain why advanced
democracies do not fight one another. Recent research provides
strong empirical support for the claim that they do not, which goes
back to Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant. Since they emerged in the
early nineteenth century, liberal democracies have fought a number
of wars, but almost never against one another. This new version of
modernization theory indicates that the democratic peace phenom
enon is due more to cultural changes linked to modernization than
to democracy per se.
In earlier periods of history, democracies fought one another
frequently. But the prevailing norms among them have evolved
over time, as is illustrated by the abolition of slavery, the gradual
expansion of the franchise, and the movement toward gender
equality in virtually all modern societies. Another cultural change that
has occurred in modern societies?which tend to be democracies?
is that war has become progressively less acceptable and people
have become more likely to express this preference and try to affect
policy accordingly. Evidence from the World Values Survey indicates
that the publics of high-income countries have much lower levels
of xenophobia than do the publics of low-income countries, and
U6] foreign ATVAIRS'Volume 88 No. 2
they are much less willing to fight for their country than are the publics
of low-income countries. Moreover, economically developed democ
racies behave far more peacefully toward one another than do poor
democracies, and economically developed democracies are far less
prone to civil war than are poor democracies.
Modernization theory has both cautionary and encouraging im
plications for U.S. foreign policy. Iraq, of course, provides a cautionary
lesson. Contrary to the appealing view that democracy can be readily
established almost anywhere, modernization theory holds that democ
racy is much more likely to flourish under certain conditions than others.
A number of factors made it unrealistic to expect that democracy would
be easy to establish in Iraq, including deep ethnic cleavages that had
been exacerbated by Saddam Husseins regime. And after Saddams
defeat, allowing physical security to deteriorate was a particularly serious
mistake. Interpersonal trust and tolerance flourish when people feel
secure. Democracy is unlikely to survive in a society torn by distrust and
intolerance, and Iraq currently manifests the highest level of xenophobia
of any society for which data are available. A good indicator of xenopho
bia is the extent to which people say they would not want to have
foreigners as neighbors. Across 80 countries, the median percentage
of those surveyed who said this was 15 percent. Among Iraqi Kurds,
51 percent of those polled said they would prefer not to have foreigners
as neighbors. Among Iraqi Arabs, 90 percent of those polled said they
would not want foreigners as neighbors. In keeping with these condi
tions, Iraq (along with Pakistan and Zimbabwe) shows very low levels
of both self-expression values and effective democracy.
Modernization theory also has positive implications for U.S. foreign
policy. Supported by a large body of evidence, it points to the conclusion
that economic development is a basic driver of democratic change?
meaning that Washington should do what it can to encourage devel
opment. Ifit wants to bring democratic change to Cuba, for example,
isolating it is counterproductive. The United States should lift the
embargo, promote economic development, and foster social engage
ment with, and other connections to, the world. Nothing is certain, but
empirical evidence suggests that a growing sense of security and a
growing emphasis on self-expression values there would undermine
the authoritarian regime.
FOREIGN A F FA 1RS? March /April 2009
Similarly, although many observers have been alarmed by the

economic resurgence of China, this growth has positive implications
for the long term. Beneath China s seemingly monolithic political
structure, the social infrastructure of democratization is emerging,
and it has progressed further than most observers realize. China is
now approaching the level of mass emphasis on self-expression
values at which Chile, Poland, South Korea, and Taiwan made
their transitions to democracy. And, surprising as it may seem to
observers who focus only on elite-level politics, Iran is also near
this threshold. As long as the Chinese Communist Party and Iran s
theocratic leaders control their countries' military and security forces,
democratic institutions will not emerge at the national level. But
growing mass pressures for liberalization are beginning to appear, and
repressing them will bring growing costs in terms of economic
inefficiency and low public morale. On the whole, increasing prosperity
for China and Iran is in the United States' national interest.
More broadly, modernization theory implies that the United
States should welcome and encourage economic development around
the world. Although economic development requires difficult adjust
ments, its long-term effects encourage the emergence of more tolerant,
less xenophobic, and ultimately more democratic societies.?

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How Development

Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

In the last several years, a democratic boom has given way to a

Ronald Inglehart is Professor of Political Science at the University of

The good news, however, is that the conditions conducive to

the great debate

The concept of modernization has a long history.

[34] foreign affairs ? Volume88No. 2

held that economic development would lead to rising living standards

FOREIGN A F FA 1RS? March /April 2009 [35]

was increasingly criticized as ethnocentric and patronizing. It came

the new modernization

In retrospect, it is obvious that the early versions of mod

[36] foreign affairs ? Volume 88 No. 2

that industrialization will automatically lead to democratic institutions;

FOREIGN A F FA 1RS? March /April 200p

and the persisting influence of tradition. Although the classic modern

[38] foreign affairs ? Volume 88 No. 2

The core idea of modernization theory is that economic and tech

New sources of empirical evidence provide valuable ins

foreign a f fa 1rs? March /April 200? [39]

to secular-rational values is linked to the shift from agrarian to industrial

[40] FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? Volume 88 No. 2

Pakistani lawyers protesting to reinstate dozens of firedjudges, Islamabad, 2008

predictable changes in a society's beliefs and values, and time-series

foreign a f fa 1rs? March /April 200? [41]

placed increasing emphasis on self-expression values. This cultural

development and democracy

Fifty years ago, the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset

[42] foreign affairs ? Volume 88 No. 2

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facilitated by an international environment in which the end of the

[44] FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? Volume 88 No. 2

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renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, removing the threat of Soviet mil

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U6] foreign ATVAIRS'Volume 88 No. 2

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[48] FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? Volume 88 No. 2

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